THE TAOISEACH Brian Cowen has signalled that the report of An Bord Snip will be published.
Speaking to reporters after attending the biennial delegate conference of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) in Tralee, he said the cabinet would meet next week and make its decision on the issue.
“. . . It is very important the public be aware of what the full range of choices and issues are. They are all difficult, there are none of them painless and none of them easy and it would always be our intention to keep people informed to the greatest extent possible.
“That is the best way of ensuring people understand the approach of Government and why it has to look at issues it wouldn’t normally have to look at or maybe want to look at but has to be done given the public finance situation we have,” he said.
Mr Cowen added: “While I understand the immediacy of the media agenda, Government has to receive it formally, Ministers have to consider it and discuss it and we will take it from there,” he said.
Meanwhile, the general secretary of Ictu David Begg said no member of An Bord Snip will ever suffer in any way from the cutbacks that they are proposing.
In a response to a speech made by the Taoiseach to the conference, Mr Begg said that there were people on that particular committee who had a long and established track record of philosophical criticism of the public service.
“They don’t actually believe in it”, he said.
